Chapter Fifty
by Lynne Stringer
Summary: I wasn't happy with the end of Chapter Fifty of Allegiant. I thought of how I might like it to go and came up with this. It's only short, but I thought it worked. Let me know what you think.


Chapter Fifty

I twist and lunge toward the device. The gun goes off and I tense for the impact of the bullet.

I feel nothing.

That fact is so unexpected that I stop in my tracks. I look around and see David's body slumped in his chair. A trickle of blood comes from a bullet hole in his head.

Caleb is standing behind him, my gun in his shaking hand.

As I watch, he lowers it, as if realizing what he's just done. Then his body hits the floor.

At first, I think he has been shot too, but then the truth hits me. The death serum. It didn't work on me, but it is working on him.

As I run to him, I wonder why it took so long to work. Because we'd let air in from the other room when we'd entered? Or was it just from the force of his will? My brother had always seemed strong, but this …

I cradle his head in my hands and he blinks up at me. For a moment I think he's going to be okay, but his eyes are struggling to focus. He's getting ready to leave me.

"Why, Caleb? Why did you follow me?"

He has other things on his mind. "Did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Trigger the serum. Tris, you need to."

The serum. I had forgotten about that. It doesn't seem important right now. "I don't want to leave you."

"Go," he says, "I promise I'll be here when you get back."  
I can see that he's not going to let up until I do it, so I go back to the controls. He recites the code for me, I press the green button and it is done.

I race back to him and he is still there. He turns his head to where David lies. "I knew he'd be here. He's just like Jeanine. She would have done that."

"Why did you come in here?"

His eyes gaze back at me. "Why did you?"

I look down. "Because I didn't want you to sacrifice yourself out of guilt. That's no reason to do something like that, Caleb."

He smiles weakly. "It's better than living with it."

I can't accept that. I can't. I don't want my brother to sacrifice himself for me! He shouldn't have to! "But you didn't want to. You didn't want to give your life up. I could tell."

"No, I didn't." His mouth creases into a frown. "I thought I'd be relieved when I saw you go in instead of me, but then I thought about losing you, about how it felt when Jeanine told me she was going to kill you." I watch as his eyes fill with tears. "I couldn't let that happen again, Tris. And after all I did to you, how else could I show you I love you? And I do love you. I do!"

His eyes wander again, and I call him back. He turns to me, and seems puzzled to see me. "I love you, sis."

"I love you. Please, please don't go!"

But his eyes wander away again. He looks behind me. "Mom?"

Then he is gone. I can tell by the way his eyes lose focus. His body slumps in my hands. I let it fall as it becomes too heavy to support, and I weep over my brother, the last link to my family, gone.

It is a long time before anyone comes in here. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, since most of them have lost their memories, but it does.

Eventually, they find us. They take Caleb from me. I object, but I know there's no point. He's gone and he's not coming back to me.

It takes a few hours, but finally, Tobias comes back. I see Uriah's family, but only briefly, as Tobias draws me into his arms.

"Cara told me what happened," he says, "I'm sorry."

"So am I." I'm done crying for the moment, so I just lean into him as his arms tighten around me.

He holds me for a while, then turns my face up to his. "Why did you go in, Tris?"

I get angry. I thought he might understand why I wanted to save my brother. "He was doing it out of guilt. I couldn't let him do that. How could I watch him make that sacrifice when I knew all the time he wished he didn't have to?"

"Maybe because he needed to do it."

I push him away. "No. I don't believe that."

"Then why did you think _you_ needed to do it?"

I look down, trying to sort out my reasons. "Because I didn't want him to do it for the wrong reasons."

"Well, maybe he didn't want you to do it either. Maybe his sacrifice is just as great as yours would have been, because he didn't want to go any more than you did, but he put you before himself. You could have robbed him of that, Tris."

I can feel the tears coming back, and I fight them. "But he was my brother!" I sob.

Tobias's eyes soften and he takes me in his arms again. I can feel his heart beating next to my ear as he cradles my face between his chest and his hand. "I know. You've lost everyone, but you still have me."

He drops his head to the same level as mine. "Remember what I said? I am your family now. We can try and sort out all this together, as a team. We're stronger that way, when we actually listen to each other."

I sigh. I still can't see that he's right about Caleb, but maybe it's just because his death is too painful now. Maybe, in a few years, I can look back on it and see it as Tobias does. Maybe I can see that my brother left because he loved me and wanted to give me a life. I hope that it will come in time, and that this ache I feel for my family will disappear. No, not disappear … I don't know if I want to let it go. But I might become bearable, I guess. Maybe if I concentrate on living for them I can do it. Maybe I can show how right my parents were. Maybe I can live for them, instead of dying. Maybe that can be my sacrifice.


End file.
